Fifth Committee

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) wrapped up the main part of its seventy-second session today, recommending that the General Assembly adopt a $5.397 billion budget for the United Nations for the 2018-2019 biennium and approve switching the Organization, on a trial basis, to a year-by-year budget cycle.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) was presented today with documents assessing the second performance report on the 2016‑2017 programme budget, as well as the programme budget implications and revised estimates resulting from exchange rates, inflation and resolutions and decisions of the General Assembly’s main committees and other United Nations bodies.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today considered the ongoing implementation of the Umoja enterprise resource planning project throughout the Organization, with delegates calling for greater transparency about the real cost of an ambitious initiative that had slipped behind schedule and surpassed its original cost estimates.

Arbitrary reductions in the resources allocated to the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH) should be avoided, particularly as the country faced continued humanitarian, health and social challenges, delegates told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today as it took up a range of reports, including one related to the human rights situation in Myanmar.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up the Secretary-General’s request today to the General Assembly for $636.6 million to support 34 special political missions during the biennium 2018-2019, with delegates seizing the opportunity to press for substantial changes to the way those missions — almost all of them the creation of the Security Council — were funded.

With the second stage of the drawdown of the African Union‑United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) set to begin in February 2018, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up the revised budget proposal for that Operation, stressing the importance of prioritizing post‑conflict reconstruction.

The new Mission to monitor Colombia’s historic peace agreement needed adequate funding to ensure it was as effective as the first operation in the country, delegates said as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up the funding of special political missions in 2018.

Putting into place the flexible working space project at Headquarters should itself be flexible and adaptable in responding to staff needs, speakers told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today as it took up the Secretary‑General’s report on its ongoing implementation.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up a request from the Secretary‑General for $1.33 million in additional resources to establish the Office of the Victims’ Rights Advocate, with the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions challenging details of the proposal.

With the assets of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund totalling a record $62 billion at the end of October, delegates today expressed concern over the quality of service it provided to its more than 200,000 participants, as well as its failure in 2016 to meet its return‑on‑investment target, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up the Fund’s proposed budget for the biennium 2018‑2019.

Daily Noon Briefing

The Secretary-General said that he was deeply saddened by the terrible suffering of the civilian population in eastern Ghouta in Syria, noting 400,000 people lived in hell on earth. He appealed to all those involved for an immediate suspension of all war activities in the region.